Playing With House Money
by Akylae
Summary: He's alone with no possessions or memory. What he has are vague hunches, confusing dreams, startling flashbacks, inexplicable skills, and a mysterious enemy.
1. Chapter 1

STANDARD DISCLAIMERS APPLY  
MADE FOR PRACTICE, NOT PROFIT

**PLAYING WITH HOUSE MONEY  
**

**_'Cuz__ tonight 's the night the world begins again_**

He awakes to a sterile smell of chlorine cleaning agents and gauze-wrapping over itchy patches of skin on the front and back of his left-side abdomen, haunted by evaporating ghosts of a nightmare: head splitting migraine, gut wrenching nausea and earthquake-like, feverish chills.

Clearest blue orbs open to a row of mechanized beds in a green-tiled room. Recognizing a hospital's intensive care ward, he's not surprised being there in the least, even though the room looks off for reasons he can't pinpoint. There is also a nondescript sadness, contrasted by vague, resigned acceptance, as if something bad yet long expected has finally happened, and now he's free to cease fearing it.

He wants to alert someone of his waking up and is left wondering which of half a dozen languages he speaks would be understood. Through a line of small windows he spies a short-sleeved janitor passing down a corridor decorated in Christmas ornaments, a contrast which throws him off in regards to his location. He has no idea where he is, only that he should be elsewhere. He figures it's December, but can't for the life of him remember the year. At least the stuff around him looks familiar in an every-day fashion, not like it fell off a sci-fi flick, and finds comfort in the fact that he wasn't comatose for ten years.

After some searching, cautious not to aggravate a lingering unease with rapid head turns, he finds the call button and summons a nurse.

"Good day, sir." She greets politely.

He recognizes her voice but strangely enough not her face. "Do I… know you?"

"You were detoxing for the last three days, barely coherent."

So he's an addict. A nice first thing to learn about oneself. He sighs inwardly, feeling depression start, but it is quickly overcome by mild surprise, because he knows her explanation is perfect, without having the slightest idea why he would know that. In fact, he isn't aware of the depth or limits to his knowledge, at least not before trying to answer. The same goes for skills, though testing those will have to wait until he's out of bed. The knowledge of light physical activity benefiting post op recovery pops up in his mind unheeded, which is annoying if not unnerving. He figures obviously having experience with operations, though if it's from the active or passive end is unclear. The bandages seem to indicate being operated on, rather than doing the operating.

"Sir?" Her voice jerks him out of the unresponsively thoughtful state. "I'm going to get the attending." She informs, and is immediately gone.

The doctor comes by shortly, fitting his self image of a tall, lanky man with graying, short hair. Only beady brown eyes and clean shaven face distinguish them.

"Hello. I'm doctor Hines, your attending."

He nods, a gesture fence-sitting between greeting and confirming his understanding.

"Do you know where you are?"

The Christmas and short sleeves thing come to mind, adding up to something their dialects contradict. Still, he gives it a shot. "South of Equator?"

"Las Vegas."

A dumb frown appears in his features as the polyglot mind instantly translates the words to 'the meadows'.

"Nevada. USA." The doctor elaborates.

Somewhere in his foggy brain a synapse blinks after repeated prodding. "Right, of course."

"Can you give me a date? You were admitted five days ago."

Eyes unfocused, he stares of into the distance, trying to do a three-variable equation with only one number.

"A year?"

He shakes his head.

"How about your name."

"I-" For several embarrassing moments his mouth stays open in a stupid manner. "…don't know."

"Close your eyes and extend your hands chest level, right palm down, left palm up."

He does so with ease.

"Your reasoning skills and motor control seem to be unimpaired." Says Dr. State d' Obvious.

Total retrograde amnesia, the big Latin words flow forth, another language to add on his list. In the same inexplicable way he knows a mental reset happens when unnatural unconsciousness meets emotional abyss. So he's a _depressed_ addict, how nice.

"The police will come over soon to talk about the shooting." Pen points at his bandaged side.

Not having anything useful to tell, he can't see why they would, but says nothing to prevent it, because he doesn't care finding out more dirt on his past life.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

Staring out the window in suffocating lethargy he again nods faintly, a nonverbal 'okay, bye'.

Alone, he wastes some time pretending at catatonia, before suddenly deciding a tip to the bathroom might be in order. He cautiously sits up, legs swung to hand over edge, than slips to the floor, barefooted on chilly linoleum. Dragging the IV pole with him and using it as support, he enters the adjoining toilet, intending to relieve himself when all of a sudden -

'Hello.' He thinks upon spotting a huge scar on his right thigh, seeming to stem form the lack of half the largest muscle. Something which, oddly enough, didn't impede his motion. He figures having learned to compensate with other muscles, which marks the injury as very old, because he didn't give compensation the slightest conscious thought. Again he is miffed by the source of such extensive insight on the working of the human body.

The vanity mirror shows a man full week due for a shave, shower and haircut, so he looks for things to make himself presentable with. He finds a disposable razor and two soap bars, hotel style. In the process of shaving he finds another scar right by the jugular, at which point a partial memory of a shooting is triggered. A loud, ghost bang echoes in his ears, startled shock followed by inexplicable remorse. What the hell was that? He puts the blade away with a hesitant, shaky hand, proceeding to remove the undesired flashbacks with some icy water. Shocking himself out of it isn't nearly as effective as shocking himself in.

Just as he drags himself out of toilet, his type of woman walks in, but aside the preference for similar physique of tall, slim and dark-haired, he draws blank.

"Detective Holland." She presents herself. "Chief of Las Vegas forensics."

"Nice to meet you." He deflects to avoid bringing up the issue of his name.

"You were found on my watch. Bleeding form a gunshot wound in a back alley of a bad part of town."

He is at a loss in regards of what to do with that information, but if anything, it doesn't affect him at all, as if violence and vice are his daily fare. "Sorry to inconvenience you." He looks down.

She gives him a momentary dumb stare, struck by the sincerity of his needless apology. "I thought you might use some leads. Given your lack of memory."

"Oh." He senses regretfully that help without ulterior motives is not something he's come to expect of people. "Thank you."

"Would you like more details?"

He wonders. The thing he's figured out so far left him worse for knowing. "Do you know who shot me?"

"Three blood stains were found, belonging to people other than you."

"I must have left a puddle." He fills in.

"Coupled with only one bullet and cartilage, it indicates an unarmed fight. One you were winning despite being outnumbered." She sounds impressed.

He finds it mildly amusing for a moment, until the final action comes to mind. "Until someone pulled a gun." The unfairness of it comes expected to him, another nice fact to consider.

"Lack of money and other possessions on your person means the attackers were probably looking to rob a handicapped man who than put up unexpectedly strong resistance."

Mention of disability baffles him. "I don't have a handicap."

"That's odd. You were found clutching a cane."

Now that he finds weird, but it also drives his curiosity up a notch. "What else did I have?"

"Nothing but the clothes you wore. Worn, rumpled and smelling of alcohol and tobacco."

He nods, again unsurprised, as it perfectly matches the bohemian self image.

"The paramedics had to cut them open, but I've stopped by the charity to get you new ones. The nurse has stored them with the cane and sneakers."

"I've taken a photo of you and some fingerprints but they don't match anything in the records. You're neither a convict nor do you have a driving license. No one of your description has been reported missing and there have been no unaccounted complaints of unpaid debt or discharges form work since your discovery."

His heart sinks with every word uttered; he's such a nobody not even the leeches are looking for him. She says nothing, but the conclusion stares them both mockingly in the face. He's just a homeless drunk some punks tried to mug before he could waste the day's begging prize on booze. No wonder his subconscious decided it would be best to simply start over.

"I'll keep you informed." She says on the way out, but he waves it off dismissively, her valor naive in face of such clear waste of time.

Alone, he suddenly feels the exhaustion of standing too long too soon after coming around, and just barely manages to reach the bed, plopping down on a comfortable mattress. He falls asleep quickly, wondering if the bed is something he should enjoy while it's available.

"Wake up." A woman's voice calls out to him, softly, seductively.

He looks up to an angular face, pale in the street light and framed in black curls. Her sinuous form hovers a strategic inch from him, bare minimum of dark lace covering but not concealing.

"Hello Cuddles." He drawls as if in a drunken haze, shifting atop familiarly rough blanket and sheets, wrists pinned above his head by something not entirely uncomfortable.

She leans closer, her breath a hot gust traveling up the side of his neck, tantalizingly close, and a pleasant ache starts to fill his underbelly.

"Wake up." She snaps in a brutish, male whisper.

His eyes snap open to the featureless ceiling, lit faintly by night lights, a ring of cold steel pressed against his temple. He swallows hard, his heart in his throat, pounding frantically.

"Where's the money?" Growls a shadow to his side.

"What money?" Confusion joins panic.

The gun is cocked. "Don't mess with me."

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"I'm gonna count to three."

"I swear. I have no idea."

"One…"

"I'm just a homeless junky."

"Two…"

With speed he didn't suspect possessing, he swings one hand into the aiming wrist, thus pushing the arm away, the other shoved in the man's chest with enough force to crack the sternum. Gun goes off, shattering the silence, bullet harmlessly shredding through pillow.

He stares with lack of comprehension as the attacker, a large white man dressed in the livery of hospital security, falls to his knees with a silent, breathless gasp, eyes wide with shocked panic.

Flat soled shoes rumble in, bringing a sea of staffers.

"Jake? What happened here?" Another guard asks as nurses crouch around the fallen man. "What's going on!?"

Eyes still locked on the oddly shaped fist, knuckle of middle finger sticking further out than the rest, he mindlessly replies. "His heart stopped." Then his gaze drifts to the attacker. "Get a d-fib." He has no idea where he's got the killing instincts from or the life saving knowledge for that matter. Returning focus on the fist, he can hear someone call for a crash cart, then wheels squealing and de-fib whining close to his bed in advance of a loud warning. Someone's hand on his injured side snaps him out of it.

"Your stitches." A petite blond nurse looks up at him.

A deep red stain advances over pristine white gauze. "Oh." He utters weakly, as if noticing something of little importance, and allows himself leaned back into the bed. Watching her fetch a suture kit, he sees the other guard amble closer.

"What happened?" A black guard, short and stout, asks again.

"I punched him." He replies, more confused than the interrogator.

"We heard a gunshot."

"Yea-" He winces through a pained hiss as the healing wound is sterilized. "He missed."

"Why would he want to-?"

"Money."

"Money?"

"My thoughts exactly." He squeezes through clenched teeth as the needle goes in and out. A glance is enough to spot the gaping IV lead, probably ripped out in the punch. "Could you…?" His hand goes for the IV pole, pointing more than reaching.

The nurse sets up another lead further up his arm, this time with a snap-off mechanism to prevent future tears.

"Thanks." He gives her a shy smile.

She returns with equal bashfulness.

The guard clears his throat. "I better be going."

"Tell detective Holland I need a sketch artist."

The guard frowns. "Jake is under arrest."

"Not for..." He huffs. "It's a long story. Please."

"I'll make sure he finds out."

"Holland's a woman."

"She." The guard corrects and leaves.

He lies idle as the nurse works on his stitches, wondering what the attack was all about. What money could anyone want form him? Even if he wasn't chronically broke, he was robbed. Whoever he was mistaken for must be very rich for someone to risk jail. Or death, he must admit, still baffled by the one-knuckle punch that came out of nowhere, like a fighter's conditioned reflex. Is he a martial artist? A soldier? At some point the nurse leaves, but lost in thought, he only notices her absence much later.

His mind, still jumpy form the threat, races.

He races, boiling in generic army fatigues stuffed with heavy equipment, that are glued to his skin by sweat. Dusty, dry air half conceals an arid expanse interrupted by an occasional withered bush. He races propelled by limbs that scream exhaustion, but driven by the sharp, barking voice behind him.

"Move your ass, bastard." The geriatric threatens at his heels. "Trying to make you a man 's a lost cause, you worthless son of a bitch. You should be lucky I haven't given up on it yet."

He can sense an incline to the ground they move over, feels his pace falter.

"Faster! No slacking or you'll run another mile."

Jaw clenched, he pushes on, but on impact of foot and ground his thigh explodes with agony and he stumbles headlong into the grit.

"Ah great, now I've gotta drag your useless ass." Hard eyes glare down on him from a severely wrinkled jarhead. "Sissies always get men killed."

Cowering behind an outcrop of rock he hasn't noticed before, he looks down on a fountain of dark red gushing from a hole in his leg. Lightheaded, he can't fight the field of vision shrinking to nothing.

"Yeah, give up. You always were a quitter." Scorn follows him to emptiness, and ushers in the pre dawn of a new day.

Bleary eyed, he gazes out into the hall, watching hospital's night staff scurry about their business. A sinking feeling overcomes him as a plausible hypothesis forms. He could be an ex soldier, discharged for a major screw-up. He could have caused deaths and drank himself to poverty out of guilt. It certainly would explain the scars, the punch and the gun flashback. The medical skills, well a field medic among fighters would certainly be seen as a woos, and be a definite liability in a fight. The old guy must have been his instructor or superior. As to which war, well the rocky, arid land would certainly help in pinpointing that. Not that it matters now.

Despaired by the idea, he wonders how difficult it would be to just slip out into the night, sell the cane at some antique shop for initial cash. Later? Who knows. Maybe get drunk all over again, even if it would be suicide so soon after d-toxing. And maybe it wouldn't be bad, to end a life of failure, a life no one cares about.

But a small voice reminds that this is just a guess, and nothing so drastic should be decided without proof. As painful as it seams to unravel this mystery, the lure of unknown is stronger. Curiosity might yet save the cat and redeem itself.

And there's also the fact that he has nothing of his own to take. In and oddly shameful way he would have to steal a gift. For the clothes were given away by people who cared, if not explicitly about him than implicitly about his sort. And they were given to him by Holland directly, who gave a damn for a reason beyond his comprehension. Who has also spent days to figure out who he is and way was he attacked.

He can't bring himself to betray her undeserved faith in him by quitting without first trying. A faith he finds so strange it discomforts and humbles him, yet one his gut feeling says can't be argued out of existence.

So he decides to stick around, and wonders if that's the first step in breaking the vicious cycle.

_to be continued..._

_

* * *

_"Better Days" Goo Goo Dolls_  
_


	2. Chapter 2

_**­Can you tell me what was ever really special about me all this time?**_

He stares at the boring shade of green, bleary eyed but unable to sleep, trying to gauge the extent of his memory loss to ascertain what he's got left to work with. From what he can figure, his skills are intact but experience memory is gone.

Well, no, skills _are _experience based. As is the odd bit of knowledge he is occasionally struck with. He seems able to grasp the general principles of things, not particulars like where he is. Because it's hard to tell where language as a skill ends, becoming just a bunch of facts once memorized and now forgotten. Same with personal memories. The evergreen wreaths are supposed to be festive, though which feast is hard to tell, and they're not supposed to go with warm weather.

And why did he associate the discrepancy with being on the wrong half of the globe is beyond him, especially since the doctor's body language said that assumption is dead wrong. But if he's on the correct side, what else could be so blatantly different?

Amnesia, he figures, is even harder than he initially thought it would be. Because not knowing details makes it damn near impossible to orient in time, space or scale. He knows there's stuff like countries and cities and years, but can't name any, the one's he's in included. So he decides to starts with what he does know and work up form there as far as he can.

For one, the doctor said United States, which means he's in some kind of union, but how big, unified or important remains unknown. And the chart said Monday, December 29th, 2008. He is relieved to know how many days to a month and months to a year there are, and where do Monday and December fit into all that. So apparently timekeeping is a skill, but geography isn't…

The sound of door opening pulls him from the insomnia based contemplation.

"I hear you had an eventful night." States Hines the ICU doctor while picking up his chart form the foot of the bed.

"Attempted extortion." He replies deadpan.

"From you?" Hines points a pen.

He shoots a firm look of annoyance. "Not the first one to notice that one."

"Vitals are good. Says here you tore up the stitches."

"Torque form the left hook."

"Yes, that would do it." The doctor walks up close, partly removing the gown fold and bandages, he spies at the patched and re-patched injury.

"Needlework looks fine." He offers, again wondering how he knows.

"What are you, a doctor?" Hines is suddenly less amicable. "Or maybe a seamstress, hm?"

There's something about the other man's comment that's twice familiar, and in a contradicting sort of way. On one hand he can relate to the annoyance at people who think they know stuff they don't. Yet there's also a long-lingering aftertaste of not being believed, again. The bitter resentment of not having his opinions taken with consideration just hangs there, without context.

"Twenty four hours observation to wean you off morphine and you'll be free to go." Hines makes the first small decreases in the dose immediately.

He stifles a cringe at the mock cheer tone. 'Free' is euphemism of the year for 'Thrown out for not having insurance while not acutely dying.' And how does he know that? Was he denied treatment when in need or did he do the denying? And in what capacity?

"If you can go that long before being shot at, that is." Hines adds.

He doesn't dignify the comment with a response, because being a bum he has bigger worries on his mind. "Before or after breakfast?"

The doctor frowns while adding the latest check-up report. "I suppose it wouldn't be fair to send you off on an empty stomach."

"No it wouldn't." He shoots a firm look.

"Than after it is." Hines says at his mild relief, and clips the chart on its perch. "Good luck with the identity crisis." The man strides out,

He utters a nondescript "Mmm." while watching Hines pass a par of hospital assigned bodyguards.

Not long after a young nurse comes by, pushing a food cart. She places a plastic dish on his table and they exchange clipped gestures of impersonal politeness.

Taking the hemispheric lid of a hemispheric bowl, he eyeballs the meal: whole grain toast, honey, a frozen block of margarine, and a mug of milk, scalding hot. Healthy, hardy and brand-less, in typical hospital fashion. With a spark of ingenuity he places the unspreadable spread under the undrinkable drink. Heat exchange transforms both to edible form while he pours honey over one slice, catching the sound of door opening once more.

Holland, in thin white jeans and a short-sleeved red shirt, smiles a greeting, laptop case slunk over her shoulder. "Bon appetit."

He frowns in frightening insecurity, distinctly remembering she spoke English yesterday. What if this isn't just retrograde amnesia. What if he never forms reliable, lasting memories again? "Parleis vou francais?" He risks a question, hoping she'll revert to English as soon as possible.

She shakes her head. "It's a common phrase."

"Oh. Right." He drips runny fat over the other slice, hiding his relief. Caveman ethics come to mind, demanding he return yesterday's unexpected altruism. "Want some?"

"No thanks." Laptop goes to the swivel table, next to his tray.

He finds it odd, apparently believing love goes through the stomach, both on the giving and receiving path, but doesn't voice the thought, taking a big bite instead. "Merci beacoup." He replies with full mouth.

"I've heard what happened. Are you all right?"

He shrugs, swallows. "All better now. Anything new on the case?"

"A couple of punks were admitted at three separate hospitals same night you did, serious bruising and bleeds, really messed up. They tried to sell it as a gang brawl but their clothes seamed to fit the same dress code. A little pressure turned one to a canary. Apparently he got a call form an unnamed man, local guy, thirty, maybe forty years. Nemo gave him your description and said they could take anything on you except plastic."

He fails to follow and it shows.

"Credit cards. Similar story with the guard."

"Someone really wants that money..." He whispers, wondering how he is connected to it, before another monetary issue caught his suspicion. "What was in it for the guard?"

"A percentage."

He looks off thoughtful, chewing another bite. "If he was going to risk his job, freedom and life for the cut, it must be worth a lot. And the employer would only give him a small piece, or else just let me walk with it… The whole sum must be enormous."

"We're thinking millions of dollars, tens of millions maybe."

He hits a dead end. "What's a dollar?"

Holland stares slack-jawed.

"Must be a currency. Ten million's a lot, right?"

"Yeah!" She makes a 'duh' face. "Wait, you really don't know!?"

"Lost the grasp of measures." He admits.

"A lot. A person could live their entire life on it, and very comfortably. Someone in a high end profession would have to work decades to make that kind of money."

He doesn't miss the fact that she is trying to put it terms of a homeless, jobless person. "So follow the money."

"While usually a good tactic, here, not so much. In this place money's everywhere. I'd need an exact amount."

"Okay… Who's the local mob?"

"Everyone. This is Las Vegas."

Another blank stare.

"It was built by the mafia."

"Really?"

"You don't have a clue where you are, do you?"

Eyes closed, he shakes his head.

"That could be a problem." She mumbles.

The two stand in awkward silence for a while.

"What about the phone calls?" He inquires, another bite of sandwich disappearing. "Can you tell who called?"

"Both calls traced to the strip."

He frowns, lost.

"Large public space packed with people." Holland explains.

"What about the phone number?"

"Pre-paid. Anonymous account, bought in a kiosk, no need to register."

Another dead end, he sighs, wondering if the money is really his. A millionaire would have acquaintances, people would notice he's missing. And vehicles, lots of them of different kinds. This doesn't add up. The whole thing… smells wrong. Scrawny index finger thrusts up in the air. "You said the clothes smelled of cigars and alcohol."

"EMT did. Why?"

"Haven't craved a smoke since I came around. Cigars are to ease nerves and having no money and no place to go is quite unnerving. Ergo, not a smoker."

"You know, you use some fancy words for someone with no clue what a dollar is."

"Skills and facts are remembered differently."

"And in which category would that bit of info fall into?"

"Observation." He replies.

"All right, second hand smoke." She follows his reasoning. "Bar maybe?"

"And alcohol doesn't evaporate enough to make clothes stink." He goes on oblivious to her.

"You think it was spilled?"

"I'd bet on it."

"An _argument_?"

"Or an accident."

"Smoking might give you shaky hands. Wait, you said 'cigars'."

He gives her a 'yeah, so?' look.

"I said tobacco. That could mean cigarettes too. You subconsciously went for the expensive kind."

"So it could be an affronted lady on a dinner date." He ads sarcastically, but to himself he takes the argument to its logical end. A rich man thinks of expensive things first, or rather doesn't even think about expenses. And luxuries are something one occasionally enjoys, he doesn't get addicted on them and then runs through tones of the stuff daily. Too expensive even for millionaires. The hypothesis is consistent with his lack of of an itch.

"Have you craved a drink?" her words pull him form the mulling.

He huffs silently, trying to find the right words. "Not exactly _craved_…"

"What do you mean?"

"I _wanted _to drink myself to amnesia. Didn't like what I found out."

"So it was a desire, not a need?" Holland wants her guess checked.

He nods, only to face a contradicting fact. "But I _did_ detox."

"Alcoholism causes depression causes drinking."

He does not reply, wondering instead on what started the original drinking problem if he isn't a total looser. Blues squint thoughtfully, and idea occurring to him. "Did they smell of me?"

"I'm sorry?"

"My clothes. The musky, haven't-bathed-in-weeks stench?"

"Don't know. Why?"

"The sneakers." He nigh leaps out of bed, shoving the sandwich remnants.

"What?"

Long legs carry him out fast, IV dragged along for the ride. "They're sill intact."

"You want to smell your shoes?" She follows him out, flashing a badge at hospital appointed guards.

He squeezes by the corner, glancing at the nurse station.

"How come you're not limping?" She asks.

He frowns at her. "Am I supposed to?" The question is whispered.

"The punks described you as limping. Nemo described you as limping. _And_ you have a cane."

"Well I'm not limping any more." He dashes past the station and into the elevator, she hot on his trail.

Once on ground floor, the two bee-line to the reception desk opposite the pedestrian entrance.

"I want my stuff." He barks at the resident nurse.

The woman stares appalled. "Go back -"

Holland holds out her official ID.

The nurse glances at the badge, than back between the weird pair.

"Name?"

"Haven't got one." He rattles. "I'm alone in ICU."

Nurse seeks cop's assurance and gets it before picking up the phone. "Bobby, it's Linda. Send me the box of John Doe, ICU."

"What's your plan?"

"I'd wash canvas is washed and buff leather. They'll either smell of detergent, polish or feet."

Just as he replies, a burly man steps aproaches, large cardboard box dropped on the counter.

"Tailored cane." He studies the implement, than bangs it on the counter. "Real wood too. Poor man's crutch would be hospital issued plastic."

"Or none." Holland says as he hands her the cane.

"Canvas." He brings a sneaker to his nose. "Rubber mostly, equal traces of sweat and soap. This was tended to."

"Not something a bum could do."

"A bum would have sold the cane ages ago." He reaffirms. "Limp or not. Hell, the thugs would have taken it if they knew its worth. Probably more than everything else on me."

"So you think you're loaded?"

"Too early to tell. I could be a proud pauper with granddad's heirloom."

"Except the cane looks new."

"It does. Maybe I've got no cash on account of expensive tastes."

"Mob loans?"

"It's possible." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Too much maybes. Need more facts."

"You wanted a sketch artist. Remembered anyone?"

"Dreamed." He corrects. "One old white man, brown eyes, salt-and-pepper porcupine hair. One white woman, blue eyes, full head of dark curls, shoulder length, big nose, blue eyes. My age or younger. Called her Cuddles." He goes to no detail on their circumstance.

Holland leads the way back to the elevators. "A term of endearment. Your wife?" She punches the call button.

He makes an odd move, jerking his head back with lower lip pouted. The dreamed activity certainly doesn't contradict it. Except for the fact she gave the feel of a working girl. But then there was complete absence of awkwardness that accompanies that kind of exchange. He felt comfortable around Cuddles, relaxed, as if around someone he knew for quite a while. Beyond that, it's all foggy. "Maybe."

They step into a car with one orderly already riding.

"What were you doing?" She asks when the doors closed.

"Oh not much…" He waits for the car to pause at their floor, than leans closer to her in the mostly empty hall. "Each other."

"Wow!" She sounds impressed for some reason, ICU door swung open.

He doesn't share her elation. "Why are we back?"

"To model the woman of your dreams." She opens the laptop case. "And the man. See where that leads us."

"Good plan." He nods, waiting for the device to boot. With any luck this will turn up someone familiar, tell them who he is. Tell them his name. Which reminds him. "Why Doe?"

"Excuse me?"

"John Doe. But 'doe' is a female deer."

"Are you a ranger or something? Something like that would narrow the search considerably."

He tries to follow the connections from that crumb of knowledge but finds himself stuck in a void. "Not a clue. … Should have been John Stag, though." Brows wiggle suggestively.

Holland grins and turns the screen so they can both see clearly. "Let's start with the man first. Any leads on his identity?"

"He was some kind of soldier. I saw fatigues."

"Which branch?"

"Don't know. We were marching through a desert."

"Desert… Coast guard and air force are out then. My superior knows a guy who knows a guy in pentagon. Another day and we'll know all about you."

Despite a possible life of wealth and security, the knowledge of being out on the street this time tomorrow, alone and without recourse, does not sit well with him. "I hope so."

_to be continued..._

_

* * *

_"How Far We've Come", Matchbox 20


	3. Chapter 3

_**I wanted to believe as I watched the world crumble in your hands**_

Boredom of an uneventful day combined with the weariness from lost sleep overcomes him easily, and dreamscape flickers to existence across the dark of his retinas, streetlights streaming by at high speed, glistening on damp asphalt of a lush countryside. Adrenalin ecstasy drains away, a drive to escape taking its place, even though he knows escaping is impossible. He can feel oblivious apathy creep up, riding now on autopilot.

At the wail of sirens it gives way to sheer panic, blue strobe cutting through pastoral night like a glaive's spinning blade. The ride becomes desperate flight, but in the distance a train crossing rings and flashes, barriers dropping as a mile long composition arrives. Forced to pull over, he spies a passively-aggressive, graying cop leave the patrol vehicle, beady blue eyes gloating from a fat pig-face, and feels bile rise with a mix of inexplicable anxiety and loathing.

"Hands on your head." The cop aims, approaching. "You have the right to shut up. Everything you say will blow up in your face. You will pay for murderer. Understand?"

Hands up, he glances back . "I haven't kill-!"

Gun grip slams into his kidneys. "Oh really? How, 'bout the pretty blonde smeared over the asphalt, or the poisoned brunette, huh?" Wrists are pulled together by force and cuffed. "The bold guy's wife, the mother of twins, hm?" He is lead to the car when a ghostly whisper caresses his ear. "Esther?"

At the mention of the name a face flashes in his minds eye, than another, and another, so by the time the quick slide-show is done, he gives in. Shoved through the car door, he falters and falls through pitch black, endlessly. Very slowly he comes around, realizing he's sitting on an uncomfortable chair, leg killing him.

Eyes open to something that looks like a dentist's practice, except there's an IV hooked to his arm, with a poison sign among illegible writing. A brown haired man in a lab coat stands some distance away, working on a peculiar machine.

"My leg hurts." He calls out.

"No it doesn't." The man states deadpan without sparing him a glance. "You're just looking to score." Finally he turns, fluffy brown hair over thick browns and stone hard dark eyes.

His heart sinks. "I'm sorry, Jimmy."

"No you're not." Dream Wilson replies with same lack of feeling, casually glancing at the big wall clock between them.

Handle clicks to midnight.

"No amnesty for you." Says Wilson and reaches for an old fashion stereo behind him.

He stares terrified as the dial knob turns, hairs on his head rising in the electrified air, heart beating faster and faster and-

Jumps upright in bed, panting through visceral terror that fades at the sight of the ICU in broad daylight, sticky sweat shining on his face, chest, hands. "Oh, god… " Head in hands he stares to nothing, wondering what kind of monster he is if he really killed all those peo-

WOMEN. They were all women. Is he a serial killer?

And what did he want to score, what was he on? Could he have d-toxed from something other than alcohol? If he killed impulsively it could have been something to remove inhibitions. If he had a car accident it sold be something to slow down reaction time, a depressant. Or maybe he was taking some psychotic for the depression that made him hallucinate and attack in paranoia. And there was the leg again, so maybe it was a painkiller. And all of those come back to the same three: Alcohol, opioids and weed…

And why the fuck does he know so much about drugs!?

Frustrated, he falls back to the mattress, sighing deeply and silently. A dreadful thought sneaks up on him as he recalls the gunshot-and-guilt flashback. What if he killed to finance his addiction? Devastating thought fitting, he curls up on one side, wanting nothing more than to just wither away.

Hours pass in abject apathy, nurse coming to decrease his morphine and leaving with her offers of assistance declined. Holland returns some time later in the evening, laptop ever present on her shoulder. "What's the matter?"

"Arrest me." He mumbles through the pillow.

She pauses. "Excuse me?"

"I'm a menace."

She comes closer. "What makes you think that?"

"I remembered their faces." He admits. "Dying."

"Their? How many-?"

He holds up a hand, all five fingers extended. "All women."

"Jesus… Do you know why?"

Head shakes.

Baffled, she sits next to him. "How?"

He chuckles sadly. "At least two died in different ways."

"I don't believe it." Holland stands up defiant.

"Jimmy does."

She squints. "Who's he?"

"Some kind of… doctor. I guess. White coat. "

"Could you describe him?"

"Brown hair and eyes. Thick brows. Boyish face...." He sighs. "Just lock me up already."

She shakes her head. "No. I've seen plenty of killers, all sorts: professional assassins, thieves without scruples, impulsive… You're not one. You're nothing like any one of those."

"How would you know!?" He snarls at her.

"Because anyone with that much remorse could have only killed by accident, if that. Five _different_ accidents, that's impossible."

He's still unconvinced and unresponsive.

"Tell you what, let's do this by the book: you're not going to tell me anything self incriminating and I'll treat you as innocent until proven guilty. And everything you just said will be ignored on account of memory being unreliable. But if we do find solid proof of past monstrosities, I'll gladly exercise some police brutality on you. That good?"

"Fine." He mumbles apathetic.

She moves closer, fidgeting. "Now I've got bad news."

He shoots her an indifferent 'go ahead' look.

"Whoever contacted the attacking guard knows where you are, which means they've asked around. Called other hospitals and morgues. So we got a print out of the incoming calls to those places since your discovery, and it's the same number. But the number was bought a year ago. We checked up all the purchase points around the antenna that picked up the activation signal, but the salesmen couldn't recall customers from the days prior."

"The people I remembered?"

"Pentagon connection got dispatched to Hawaii. Looking the soldier up the regular way will take a couple of days. And whoever Cuddles is, she's neither in nor from Nevada."

Head slinks back to pillow.

Holland, however, is busy dialing on her cell phone. "Tom, could you look up someone for me. White adult male, brown hair, brown eyes, nickname Jimmy so he's probably a James. Anything that wears a lab coat: doctors, technicians, professors... Thanks." She slaps the phone shut and pockets it. "Now what?"

He shrugs, indifferent.

"Anything you want? Food, drink?"

"Be alone."

Holland sighs her defeat. "Okay. I'll come back in tomorrow morning, but I'm leaving you the laptop." She places the hefty case on a tiny nightstand. "Internet is on the police. Feel free to surf for clues, just don't do anything scandalous with it."

Her unrequested favor baffles him, and he has a hunch that things rarely happened this way before. "Why?" He asks her retreating back.

She stops to glance back. "Why what?"

"All of this. The clothes, computer, food…"

"Because I can't remember the last time I've met a true innocent."

He snorts at her naiveté, sound thick with self-loathing.

Holland bites her lip. "Because everybody lies... Except you." And with that she leaves him, a stunned thoughtfulness etched in his features.

As he's trying to grasp details of his alleged killing spree, the hum of ventilation becomes drowned out by loud wheezing and the row of beds alongside his turn from solid masses of unoccupied high tech furniture to ghostly images of simple iron bunks crowded by dark tanned people. Some write in agony, others lie still from exhaustion. Most are emaciated and either riddled with pustules or bleeding from every orifice. He spots the source of wheezing – two aging, immobilized men. A kid pukes over the side of his bed, shaking and twitching. They are the only three not visibly sick.

Only then does his glance fall on the second Caucasian in the room, a chubby black-haired man, sickly pale but sporting a hospital gown and IV, much more than the worse off suckers have. He stares dumbly as the face of the ten years younger man morphs between two different persons, both looking hypocritically stubborn in their self righteous smugness.

Footsteps come from the only healthy person around, a bald-shaved black man walking from bed to bed and checking up other people's vitals.

Suddenly he's aware of a mask tight on his face, a sealed suit sweltering on his body, suffocatingly so. He tries to stand up and almost drops to the ground as the leg gives under him with a flash of pain. His gloved hand meets thick bandages covering the disobedient thigh. He limps from bed to bed to the native doctor, the man's features familiar. Suddenly the native loses balance, stumbling to his arms, coughing blood. He turns the younger man's face up for a better look, and is struck by an expression of desperate pleading from milky white eyes.

A scream draws his attention to the outside and he settles the infected doctor on what was just now his cot before heading out. Pushing aside the opaque white tent fold he is faced with-

Disaster.

Small huts strewn about the heart of feeble farmland, most burned to heaps of charred straw and mud. Pit like a gaping maw on the village edge, dark skinned bodies lined up next to it, interred by bodies slightly less skeletal, the walking dead. And blood. So much blood.

Screaming again. A dozen blacks charge a muddy jeep, white with baby-blue seal painted on the door. They're trying to get hold of crates in its rear while a white man that appears to be his armed colleague is kicking them off with boots and rifle butt.

He feels inexorably drawn to the chaos and floats toward it more than walks, so absorbed by the horror it has disconnected him from his body. He passes a family preparing to leave, refugees visited by all four horsemen. To his side another armed man blocks their escape and they turn back in defeat.

"Are you okay, sir?" The armed guard transforms to uniformed cop, muddy road becoming a thoroughly clean ICU ward.

He blinks. "I, ah… must have been sleepwalking."

"Should I call for a doctor? Detective Holland?"

"No. No need. Sorry." He turns back in, ambling to his bed disoriented and confused.

The dream or flashback or whatever it was unsettles him further, so he tries to make sense of it. Again. It looked like a pandemic at the back end of the world. No, it looked like three separate, simultaneous pandemics, spiced with some completely unrelated diseases just for the fun of it.

And famine. Possibly even war.

Which? When? He didn't see his face, couldn't gauge the time passed since then. So where?

Somewhere in the tropics. African, the people looked African, and their height and built resonated with the climate for whatever reason, it was consistent and therefore more likely true.

But if it was a medical disaster, why send soldiers? Why send *him*? Those people needed doc- The Caucasians were doctors, and they fell ill too. The situation was beyond salvaging. The soldiers were a firewall, an enforced quarantine. A death sentence…

The crates. Something important was in there, something critical. The locals were going up against armed men for it, they were willing to die to get it. The fact alerts him to its content. It was medicine, strong antibiotics or vaccines. But there was either not enough to go around or it wasn't meant for those people at all. Yet it looked too much for just one privileged white to get, if he could explain why he thinks whites are privileged. And that's not mentioning that it would be easier to take the white out than to bring medicine in and provide defense for it only too keep it away from other sick people. Or the fact that risking three soldiers for an apparent civilian is downright insane if a straightforward alternative exists.

When he tries to grasp the cause behind his familiarity with armed forces tactics a medical explanation turns up instead - ring vaccination. He knows pandemics are stopped by inoculating the healthy and treating the sick symptomatically while keeping fingers crossed. With little to no resources they are left altogether. In an odd twist, memory delivers more than wanted, bringing knowledge that euthanasia of those progressed too far along gets tacit, unspoken allowance. And what poorer place there is than that iron-age village.

Was he there to enforce it? To make sure the sick got nothing? It was enough to make the most tolerant of men loathe him, enough for him to loathe himself and start guzzling.

But it seems to have nothing to do with the women, which he _knows_ are real.

So is the black doctor. Too real and too close to home.

Doctors, so much doctors. But also soldiers. And drugs and blood and…

Like a slap on the face he is struck with a snapshot from the execution dream, envisioning again the IV bag and its mysterious content draining into his arm. Only now he knows it was chemo - a poison unless one is ill. Like drugs or radiation. And blood, if it's going out instead of in, or if it's the wrong type. Even some mutations if one gets single copy. Like doctors, a gift if they're competent and moral, a disaster otherwise. Cops and soldiers too.

The stark contrast and duality of associations makes it dawn on him that this is big - life and death kind of stuff. Whatever he forgot, whatever it was that didn't want to be recalled - it is _huge_.

He has to know, and necessity provides him with means to discovery. He turns the computer on and sets up a wireless connection, planning to search the web for things he knows until he has exhausted all avenues, than piece the findings together in a plausible whole.

Even as he begins has a gnawing gut feeling disturbs his peace of mind, a hunch that the key to everything is also a reason his memory whipped itself blank. That the truth _will_ all blow up in his face, just as the dream cop said, and that he would regret finding out.

But he has to know, and allows his subconscious to do the honors of selecting the starting point at pseudo-random:

'NDE.'

He frowns quizzically at the unrecognizable shorthand, pressing enter with curiosity doubled.

_to be continued..._

_

* * *

Johnette Napolitano, Suicide note  
_


	4. Chapter 4

_**I know Saint Peter won't call my name**_

Search results blink to existence on the screen, first item of near death experiences intriguingly unexpected. Yet he feels familiar with such things, as well as death in general. He knows, without instances to name, that he has seen it from all angles, inside out, an unsettling thought all by itself. Reluctantly he follows the first link to a page decorated with a pale background of clouds rendered in pastel blues, pinks and yellows, the idyllic heavenly association triggering reflex disgust at forced cheesy naiveté and the ugly implications behind irrational thinking. But the links to the side are numerous, and he is surprised to find that most, of themselves, have nothing to do with the site's original topic. Attention grabbing terms, not all of them positive, keep tugging his mind every which way. Humanity and Music stand side by side with Death and War, but vague things like Science, Knowledge and mostly Questions get the biggest part.

Figuring the repulsive page is ironically a gathering point for the major parts of is forgotten life, his _past_ life, he doesn't follow those specific links, instead inputting the terms back to the search engine independently. From there a frenzied ping-pong game begins as he follows multiple associative leads parallel one another, each bringing up more of his forgotten factual knowledge. But whenever he tries to recall how he came to the knowledge, whether it was heard, read or otherwise imparted, the lead puffs out of existence like a thread of thin mist.

Hours later, in the dead of night, he feels like having exhausted all paths, but the wealth of information the research has provided appears more discouraging than a lack of data. Now, instead of a single unknown identity to pursue, he has to make sense of half a dozen alternative ones, all of them tangled up in that which is him.

A musical knowledgebase befitting a professional performer stands in stark contrast to the ultimate survivalist, both of which are poised against the medical, philosophical and natural-science oriented inner geek. Except the gambling and anarchy preferences are as far removed from geekdom as possible.

It is bizarre at times when outlines of his multiple personalities clash with recalled knowledge. How can he not have a license if vehicles excite him, to the point of recalling maintenance and minor repairs? How can he be repulsed by anything mildly spiritual and yet rapidly come up with a barrage of hypotheses on the same, as well as arguments for and against them, that would put a philosopher to shame?

Despite the late hour, he is frustrated enough that sleep evades him, so to quell the nagging he proceeds to check Holland's musical collection, finding it an eclectic jumble of unrecognizable names. He chooses a mystery song to break the ice, a classical piece with a numbered classification that gives no insight into its content.

The very first phase makes his fingertips tingle and itch, undulating of their own volition across the small table. Main tune cements itself effortlessly into memory, whether because the latter is mostly blank, or because the former was already there and merely dug up again. Eyes snap from fingers playing air piano to the notebook's keyboard, inspiration coming like a ship's growing outline through fog. Back online, he digs up a program enabling him to play on the machine keyboard, if in an awkward, stumbling manner.

A song or five later, the nurse sneaks up to listen, but does not interrupt his rapid intake of knowledge. Song after fulfilling song, his increasingly proficient playing ushers in the dawn, until he finds himself unexpectedly yawning. Figuring a few hours of rest would be good before the first day out, he leaves the machine and drifts off to slumber.

The smell of scrambled eggs, hash browns and thick cocoa welcomes him to the waking word, and he revels in the aromas, reminiscent of being taken care of, before reality kicks in with a side dish of nostalgia and homesickness lacking a specific target.

"Special delivery." The petite nurse from last night smiles friendly. "As requested by Doctor Hines' "

He sits up straighter, watching her serve it, and knows the caloric bomb is there to provide him with energy reserves in the world without a social network to rely on. "It's appreciated." He gives her a message to deliver before digging into the bits of chopped taters and shredded eggs.

"Tell him yourself." She says, nodding at the white coat ambling down the hall.

He nods in confirmation in the middle of a bite. "Morning round." Fork is left resting temporary.

"Good morning." Hines enters in an easy pace. "Weaning went well?"

"No problemo." He replies in Spanish, guessing that it's appropriate enough at a place named in the same language.

Hines pushes the food aside for the time being, checking the injury. "Looks fine to me. Any issues I should know of?"

"No alerts, no complaints." Informs the nurse.

"Then you won't be needing this anymore." Hines removes his IV. "Could you bring his clothes, please?"

"Right away." She takes off in a brisk pace.

"Do you know what you'll do now?" Hines asks while signing up release papers.

He shrugs. "Find a homeless shelter and a job?"

"I'd recommend Alcoholics Anonymous too."

He nods in an indeterminable manner, agreeing with the suggestion's validity but not planning following with it.

"Come back to the ER in a week to have the stitches removed, sooner if they get infected or damaged." Hines advises. "And good luck."

"Thanks." He sees he man off, than picks the plate again.

Somewhere into the meal his clothes and cane are delivered, the thin, summer jeans and loose tee feeling sufficiently appropriate, and he starts outlining his as of yet unknown dressing style. While in the toilet, dressing and washing up, Holland's sensible low heels clack in.

"Where did he go?" Her tense voice inquires someone.

"Nowhere." A nervous man replies, probably his guard.

Tying the laces, he wonders how protection will continue and whether or not it would impede his return to society.

"Hi." He speaks unassumingly on return to the main room.

"Hi." She gives him a smile in greeting. "Regular clothes flatter you."

"Thanks." He looks away, left fidgety by the unexpected compliment, apparently another positive thing he used to go without.

"Found out anything?" She asks while packing the computer.

"Yes and no."

Holland urges him with a questioning glance.

"I know I'm a polymath. I don't know which math I do for a living."

She leans in, elbow on portable table. "What are the options?"

"All of the above plus scientist, philosopher, mechanic, wilderness guide. And apparently I play piano."

"Interesting." Holland is impressed, but only for a split second. "Not helpful." She hands him the computer bag.

He adjusts the strap. "Now what?"

"I've managed to get your protection extended, but only a limited kind. Father Hernandez runs a homeless shelter as well as visiting our halfway house. His brother is part of the undercover unit. He'll be 'volunteering'-" She manages to quote vocally. "-at the shelter while you're there. Any problems?"

He shakes his head, expression a mild 'Nah.'

"Then we better get going." Holland says and turns to the door. Her feet get stuck inches from the frame, and he nearly collides with the detective. Just as she reaches for the phone clipped to her belt, the shaky device starts ringing, tone picking up volume.

"Holland here." She answers. "I can wait. … So soon? Yes. Aha. All right." She hangs up and fails at trying not to look excited.

He frowns at her quizzically, curiosity piqued. "Whacha got?"

"Does the name James Evan Wilson ring any bells?"

He shrugs. Other than the fact that the name can be shortened into Jimmy by the apparent standards of the given language, it rouses no feelings in him.

The phone beeps, drawing his attention.

"Look familiar?"

"That's him." Amazed, he reaches for her phone to reassure himself. The image is small and grainy, face a two-dimensional mask since the misplaced light source and ill chosen an-face direction took away the illusion of depth. But the thick brown brow and childish lips are unmistakable. "That's Jimmy." He looks up amazed.

"Doctor Wilson." She corrects. "A New Jersey Oncologist, living in Trenton. Got a standing order for his arrest in Indiana. Tom is looking up details. Come on." She walks out to his astonishment.

What does it matter where they are when the call comes? "Go where?"

"Shelter." Holland turns to answer. "Hernandez will be waiting."

It surprises him how casually she goes to plan B, not expecting things to turn out for the best that fast, even as she hopes they would. He grabs the cane without really thinking about it and only jerks when the instinctive move causes him to feel a needless out-of-sync sway to his gait as rubber meets linoleum. The second nature action brings home the startling fact that he was only recently a cripple, something which cannot be equated with his athletic self image.

She notices his stalling. "What is it?"

"Nothing."He shakes off contradicting thoughts. Cane balances from the center in the strong grip of his right as he catches up to the detective in long strides.

Once out the front entrance, he is struck by the flashy facades of the city. Even in the morning, the towering casino hotels are screaming decadence by way of presumptuous, kitsch ornaments.

"Wow."

"You'll get used to it." Holland waves it off, her phone interrupting again. An excited male voice can be heard from the other end upon answering. "Are you David?" she asks. "Dave?"

He makes a blank face. "Why?"

"James has an older brother who was reported missing ten years ago."

He meets her eyes, expression strung between eager and evasive.

"Brown eyes." She sounds sad to disappoint.

"Figures." He mumbles.

"Thanks anyway. Okay." She ends the call. "Tom will try contacting the doc."

"Try?"

"He moved a few times since June. Seems to be switching jobs lately."

"Lately?"

"He used to live in Princeton for twenty years before that."

"Something happened in June." He mumbles, mostly to himself. Something bad. Something big.

"You took off?" Holland offers as they enter her car. "His movements would be consistent with an expanding search."

"Could be." He replies without conviction. His gut spasms at the opposite, much less desired thought. That it was something he did.

The ride is a fairly quiet experience, with him mostly taking in the busy scenes and Holland offering an occasional, unprompted tour guide hint. The shelter they park next to is part of a religious complex of sorts, at the heart of a working class area.

The prospect of being pitied while in a religious environment compounds to his already faltering mood, adding insult to injury. The place itself is depressing enough, more from the hopeless look of veteran bums than the state of the building and objects within. He doesn't speak much during the introduction to the short and tanned Hernandez brothers, a jovial administrator and his inconspicuous brother, observing from behind the serving counter.

The food kind and arangment is familiar, but the context is totally wrong. He has the urge to manipulate a free meal which is off-putting in a place who's purpose is to give them away. Living off charity doesn't sit well with him, unlike fraud or theft, telling of staunch independence, pride, and lousy morals.

The ingenious mind steps in to save his feelings. "Anybody can volunteer?"

"Ofcourse." The priest glows with a welcoming air. "Everyone will be helped an anyone can help."

"Even me?"

Hernandez squints curious before smiling knowingly. "You want to earn your living. All right, what can you do?"

Cook? Clean? Do the laundry? Suddenly the married man theory becomes very likely, because for all his skills, he couldn't even take care of himself. "I can learn quickly."

Hernandez laughs, a harmless , benign laugh he can tell is aimed at the situation and not himself. The man, taps his forearm amicably. "Then we will teach you. That way youmight even get a job."

Just then Holland's phone kicks in, and after a moment of listening she excitedly mouths _"We've got him."_ A beep later and she's already dialing.

"Mr Wilson, this is detective Holland of LAPD" She introduces herself. "Do you know a middle aged white male? Blue eyes, black hair, over six feet?"

Silence stretches, making his nerves stronger and stronger with each accelerating heartbeat. The tension ends abruptly as Holland takes the device from her ear, looking at it with a thoughtful frown.

"I take it that was a no."

"No…" She repeats in a way which negates his assumption. "He said no, but he sounded angry. And he hung up immediately after."

His thumb scratches brow. "A stranger wouldn't evoke an emotional response strong enough to hang up on a cop. A stranger wouldn't evoke _any_ response." Jimmy's anger is oddly familiar, reassuringly so, as if some occasional problematic occurrence that is neither desired but also not insurmountable. A general this too shall pass feeling overcomes him. Unless… "Was he frustrated?"

"What difference does it make?"

"All the difference." He insists. "When he said no? Was he exasperated?"

"I think so." She answers with innocent honest, unaware of implications.

Whatever happened, it wasn't a one-time occurrence that he could be amnestied from, it was the last straw. He crossed a line, either in kind or amount, a point of no return. But maybe, just maybe… He holds out a hand, eyes locked on the phone in a wordless plea. She hands it over.

"_Hello?"_ An angry baritone strikes a chord in him.

He gulps. "Jimmy?"

Wilson hangs up again.

He closes the phone in sad, solemn silence and gives it back. Holland shakes the thing in her hand once, twice, presses redial.

"Don't call him." He nods at her phone.

She hangs up. "Why not?"

"Just… don't." He makes a cutting motion.

"He knows who you are." She insists. "He can help us."

"He doesn't want to." He barks back, drawing attention of the few beneficiaries present. "He doesn't have to." Voice mellows down. "It's not like I'm his brother or anything." The words trickle out depressingly.

"Well tough luck. He has to cooperate with an investigation."

"No he doesn't." He returns. "You can threaten consequences, you can _impose_ them, but he can still refuse. You can't force people to help. To care."

"I don't care if he cares." She turns stubborn, redialing. "He'll talk."

"Don't Call Him!" He snaps, thwacking the phone from her typing hand and into the far corner of the dormitory.

The two stare at each other for a moment under the spotlight of the audience's focus, one confused and the other realizing what he did. Uncomfortable with total attention, he walks to the chapel slowly. The emptiness of the place is inviting enough to overcome his dislike of spiritual matters. That and he's just too far gone to give a damn. He near drags himself to the last pew, slumping down dejected.

"You did something." Holland's voice interrupts the heavy silence, footsteps approaching from behind and resonating in the acoustic space. "And you don't think he'll forgive you."

He snorts. "Congratulations, you're telepathic."

She sits next to him. "Didn't think you were a religious person."

"I'm not." He admits with some eureka to his voice, realizing the first concrete thing about himself. "Just a private one."

Holland sighs. "Now what?"

_to be continued..._

* * *

_Coldplay, Viva la vida_


	5. Chapter 5

_**The more you see, the less you know**_

He ambles into kitchen an hour before lunchtime, unable to state his urge to contribute or explain the unwarranted lack of voice.

Hernandez notes his nervous hover while pouring a large mug of rice into a huge pot of bubbling water. "Give me a hand with those, will you?" The priest asks seemingly innocent, nodding at the heap of colorful vegetables waiting in the sync.

He moves to the sink slowly, wondering what to do.

"Just rinse them." The hint saves him embarrassment of asking for guidance.

Just as he finishes, Hernandez joins him by the sync. The priest goes straight to slicing up the vegetables for salad, and he follows suit, his cuts swift and clean.

"You work like a chef." Hernandez comments.

He contemplates the idea that is not without merit, but an altogether different urge tugs at him, and he decides to go along with it, just to see if it would take him anywhere interesting. Unprompted, he takes another knife from the rack and starts making compact, complicated and graceful moves in the air above the halved tomato. In mid-swing he stops, catching padre's worried attention. "Why do I have the feeling I should be sowing this back up, then?"

A pot whistles on the stove behind them as the aroma of cooked rice escapes a bouncing, clacking lid. It blends with the salt and iodine twang of the raw fish from across the room, and he is instantly struck with a photo-album's worth of flashbacks. A narrow, crowded street, Asians in outdated clothes, odd but familiar wooden architecture, paper lampions and intricate pictograms written in bold ink.

"Ginowan dojo." He reads aloud from the mental image, once again scaring father Hernandez. "Dojo is like a gym. Not sure about ginowan."

"I think it's a town in Japan." Hernandez says. "One of my older patrons used to talk about it often. He was a Marine, stationed at Okinawa airbase during the Vietnam War."

The names mean nothing to him, yet are tantalizing clues, fitting in with his knowledge of Japanese, especially the extensive fighting lexicon. His hands comes into the strange fist again, almost of its own accord. "Mune tsuki." Realization dawns. "Chest strike." He translates. "I must have trained some marshal art there." Facts click. "I dreamt I was a soldier. Could I have been in that war?"

"You look around fifty, which would mean you were still a minor at the time, but just barely. Maybe you were, for just a few months. It would explain why how you survived."

"Was there a desert there?"

"'Nam?" Hernandez is surprised. "More like jungles. Desert wars are more recent."

"Are?"

"Three in the last twenty years. All of them with the Arabs."

He finds Arabic on the list of languages he speaks - a hard and soft variety in fact. "I think I've been there, too."

Hernandez is incredulous. "All of those?"

Uncertain, he turns back to chopping the greens, the fading odor of rice working under his radar. He feels a string of odd revelations, starting with the feel that he is now de facto, if not formally, a lay monk. The conclusion is baffling given padre's lack of expectations on his commitment, or anyone else's for that matter, but sticks with him despite evidence to contrary. It's cause is beyond him, just a rule that popped out of nowhere, followed by surprise, as he could have never seen himself in that role. For reasons unclear to him, he seems to believe a bald-shaved head and a bright-colored bed sheet would fit in. The odd tidbits of knowledge drop in uninvited, each more senseless than the last.

But just as he begins to wonder if the unprompted facts are reliable memories or fantasies that should not be trusted, the double door swings open for Hernandez junior.

"Trays are ready." Policeman says to padre, spotting him but keeping up the act of not noticing, Jose walks over, fetching an apple on the way and washing it in the nearby sync. "You wanted to talk?" the officer mumbles, his low voice inaudible to the more distant volunteers.

The question takes him unprepared but he nods quickly.

Jose nods in return and leaves through the back entrance, him following inconspicuously some ten seconds later.

"I'll need a ride." He says as the policeman leads the way o the parking lot. "D'Or placed an ad up for a piano player at the bar."

"Starting career as a jukebox?" Hernandez get's in an old, creaky van.

"I thought you're supposed to encourage my return to society." He snarks form the car.

"That's Raul." Hernandez corrects while starting the engine. "I'm here to take the bullet for you."

The words trigger another gunshot memory, this time accompanied by a searing flash of light and an image of a blonde young man hovering over him, the angelic face concerned.

Jose glances at him worriedly. "You all right?"

"It's nothing-" Words lodge in his throat when a whiff of freshly baked bread drifts in through the open window from a passing fast food stall. He sticks his head out, the wide asphalt avenue instantly transformed to a dusty, pedestrian road, crowded with olive-tanned men and veiled women. A youth on a tiny motorbike weaves through the throng, on his head a large wooden surface loaded with flatbread.

He stares at it in shocked awe at the ghostly images as an old man blares as if from loudspeakers, drowning out the street noise. Nasal voice is too distorted to grasp the words. A deep part of him recognizes it as a summon, but to what, he can't decide. The call fades and with it the images, leaving him in the busy street.

Leaning back in the car he rubs his face intensely. "I'm seeing things."

"Good. Maybe if you remember something useful-"

"That's just it." He implores. "None of it is useful." A sigh of exasperation drifts out of him.

The van turns a corner off the broad avenue and onto a side road, stopping at the back end of a fifty-story hotel. "Here we are." Jose pulls over.

The two men enter cautiously, native glancing around for hidden dangers, the other overwhelmed with luxury.

"Stuart?" Someone calls from behind them. "Stuart Jansen?" A short, brown-haired Caucasian jogs up to them, middle aged and wearing a fancy version of d'Or's uniform and a name tag reading Arialdi. "Professor at Michigan University?"

He balks. "You're talking to me?"

Arialdi frowns, insulted. "I'd expect the others to go bad from money, but not _you_?"

"What do you know about the money?" Hernandez interjects sternly.

"What do you mean do I-" The short man gasps. "Is this a prank?" Arialdi frowns at him. "Are you messing with _me_?"

"No." He holds his hands up, sighs. "I- I don't remember who I am."

"Really?"

"Really." Hernandez deadpans.

A slough of expressions flickers across Arialdi's face in short succession: bewilderment, sadness, and finally good cheer. "Follow me." He smirks cunningly, leading them into the grand casino.

"We have no money." Hernandez preempts any possible scan.

"Funny you should say that." Arialdi smiles over his shoulder, pressing on past roulette tables and slot machines.

He gazes around, skill pouring at the fore of his awareness as if he was experiencing wireless download from the casino straight to his brain. He knows to stay well away from machines, roulette too, unless he has trillions of dollars. He knows poker is easy as pie, boiling down to psychology and math. A sight of the black-jack table brings up a different set of tips, like how to stare at cards with the peripheral vision while seemingly glancing around oblivious. Or how to keep count with a beat of the left corn, out of view of spying eyes and hidden cameras. He also knows how to avoid suspicion form any one casino staff by circling around all the town's establishments, so as to spread the gains thin and wide.

Before he can process the sudden fountain of knowledge, he almost blunders into a picture of himself, framed amidst unfamiliar faces. Large black-and-white photo lines up almost perfectly with his full-colored reflection, mirrored in the polished glass.

"Stuart Jansen." Arialdi reads the plaque below with a smile to his tone. "All states poker tournament. One hundred million dollars."

"Stuart Jansen." He parrots in a whisper. His mind skips the name itself and immediately unleashes the inner linguist to dissect the source phrases: John's son, in Dutch; a steward, as in a house guard. He frowns, finding everything about it fitting yet wrong.

Hernandez's brow rises. "Didn't see that one coming."

He stares dazed at the image of himself, consistent right down to the slight crook of nose. He mulls the other fact over. One percent of the prize is still a million bucks. It's more than enough for anyone to risk anything, yet small enough a percentage to for someone to invest in fixing a fiasco. "What else do you know about me?"

"I know the reception should have everything on you." Arialdi grins, striding back toward the reception.

The two trail behind him, greeted by a Valkyrie receptionist. A smile later, Arialdi has her looking up everything on Stuart Jansen. The print-out is ready in seconds.

"Sun suit, nice- choice…. Huh." Arialdi smirks. "Its reserved until New Year's day."

He shares a hopeful look with Hernandez.

"Come on." The man takes them to the elevators and calls the car. "Let's see what you've got."

Ten stories up, a universal card key opens a spacious room, furnished with minimalistic but refined furniture.

Hernandez nudges him in the ribs, "You've got taste, Stu."

The name strikes no cord in him, unlike the homey mess of clothes scattered about the bed, chairs and carpet. He steps in, oblivious to the comment, taking in the blend of formal, casual and athletic garments, with not one outfit complete. "I've got a weird taste in clothes." He holds up one neon-green sneaker and a navy-blue blazer. Yet despite the comment, he feels comfortable with the selection, as if he could put both on and walk out confidently. "This is mine." A certain nod confirms it, his satisfaction evident.

"Holland-" Hernandez speaks into his phone. "Come to d'Or and look for Stuart Jansen, you are not going to believe this. ... I can do that now." The cop gestures at Arialdi to hand over the print-out.

"Jansen, Stuart." Hernandez reads slowly. "221 Baker street, Ann arbor, Michigan. … Okay."

He looks on impatient, tense hope swelling in him.

"There isn't?" Hernandez frowns.

He gulps.

"Can you check Michigan University? ... I see. Okay." Hernandez shuts the phone. "You're not Stuart."

The concierge and he share a befuddled look. "What?" They ask in unison.

"There is no Baker street in Ann Arbor, and the three Stuart Jansens in all of Michigan are a sixty eight, seven and twenty-four."

He's bewildered. "But- That's my picture down there." He points at the flor. "This is my stuff" Hands wave around. "How?"

"Fake ID." Says the sullen concierge.

Hernandez nods.

"The money." He whispers, his face affixed in a thoughtful mask. "We have to follow the money."

_to be continued..._

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"City of Blinding Lights", U2


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